theActivist members in
Issue 100
Usdaw members need a fighting
leadership - Vote Broad Left!
Ryan Aldred, Usdaw South
Wales & Western Executive
Council candidate
With Covid decimating the
retail sector, it is vital that
Usdaw takes a lead in
organising retail and
distribution workers in
supermarkets, high street
chains and smaller,
independent businesses.
Workers shouldn't pay for this
crisis, every job must be
defended.
We need an end to zero and
low-hours contracts, except
where members specifically
opt in.
Supermarket and distribution
staff have worked through
three lockdowns to ensure
that everyone in Britain has
access to food. Retail and
distribution workers should be
rewarded with wages that
Lockdown 3.0 - fight to make our shops safe!
Iain Dalton, Usdaw Broad
Left Chair (personal
capacity)
Over the last few months,
retail has been vying with
schools for the top spot for
Covid-19 outbreaks. That
schools are now rightly shut to
many students to try to stop
the spread of the virus, shines
a spotlight on the retailers that
remain open where conditions
are far more lax than was the
case during the first lockdown.
Over the last weekend there
have been a number of high
profile outbreaks of Covid in
Tesco stores, with tragically
two workers in a store in
Greenock dying as a result of
an outbreak there. A Bridgend
store has had 40 confirmed
cases since Christmas, with
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reflect their status as key
workers.
This is why we need £12 an
hour as a minimum wage with
hazard pay for workers putting
themselves at risk to continue
to deliver what has been
recognised as a vital service.
We shouldn't shy away from
taking industrial action up to
and including strike action if
supermarket bosses refuse to
give up their bumper profits.
We need to challenge
companies like Sainsbury's
which can afford to pay out
massive dividends to
shareholders while
simultaneously putting
thousands of jobs at risk.
With each subsequent
lockdown we have seen many
names disappearing from the
high street for good. We need
a leadership prepared to roll
out a retail industrial strategy
calling for public ownership to
140 workers isolating at one
point, whilst there have also
been outbreaks at a Cardiff
Tesco Extra store and the
distribution centre at Magor.
There are numerous other
reports in local newspapers of
other outbreaks.
Retail and distribution workers
will be asking what their
unions are doing to protect
them? In a recent Usdaw
press release (9th January), a
series of measures are put
forward, which the Activist
would support, including
observance of 2 metre
distancing, one-way systems,
retail workers being amongst
those with priority for receiving
the vaccine, doorstep only-
deliveries of shopping, trained
security staff overseeing entry
and exit from stores and
compliance with mask
ENGLAND & WALES
save the hundreds of
thousands of jobs currently at
risk, whether it be
Debenhams, the Arcadia
Group or any of those on the
growing list of retailers who
have fallen into
administration.
If elected, I would take such a
strategy to the Usdaw
executive council to ensure
that key supermarket workers
and non-essential retail and
distribution workers alike are
protected. A vote for me is a
vote for a fighting, democratic
leadership.
Broad Left members are
standing for a number of
positions in the upcoming
elections including Andrea
Watts for President, and Lynn
Goodwin and Ryan Aldred for
EC seats. The Broad Left can
be contacted at:
usdawbroadleft@gmail.com
wearing amongst others.
We would argue that given the
increased transmission of the
new variants there are points
that should go further, such as
restocking of shelves being
done when aisles or stores are
closed in order to protect staff,
as well as vastly reducing the
current capacity limits, which
seem to be based on 1m+
distancing in stores without
any shelves etc
Continued on next page >
Broad Left election rally
Sunday 31st January, 7pm on Zoom
Speakers include Broad Left
candidates, and Amy Murphy,
Usdaw President (personal
capacity)
Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/
j/87466401768
Meeting ID: 874 6640 1768
January 2021
IRELAND
Join the union and help us
organise for
•No lifting of any Covid measures
without agreement from elected lo-
cal health & safety committees/reps
•Full pay for all workers self-isolat-
ing or furloughed from day one - no
to forcing staff to use holidays
• An immediate £12/hour minimum
wage as a step to £15 + hazard pay
•Increase staffing levels in store to
carry out any necessary cleaning &
hygiene duties, bring back in house
outsourced cleaners. Full time con-
tracts to all those who want them
•Scrap the 2 year qualifying period -
Full employment rights from day one
• Scrap performance targets
•Time and a half for all overtime
worked over contracted hours
•Reinstate lost paid breaks and
premium payments, double pay on
Sundays and time and a half on
Saturdays. No extension of Sunday
trading
•Trade union control over changing
staff duties, hiring and firing, and
opening time changes
•35 hour working week without loss
of pay
•Open the books to trade union in-
spection if companies say they can’t
afford these measures
• Bailout workers, not the bosses
and the speculators. Camapign for
nationalisation to save jobs.
•Democratically elected committees
of workers and consumers to control
prices and any rationing policies at
all levels.
•For socialist planning to put the
needs of workers first, not share-
holders profits.
Join Usdaw - usdaw.org.uk/join
Jointhe fightback
JOINTHE
●
SOCIALISTS
England & Wales
socialistparty.org.uk
● Scotland
socialistpartyscotland.org.uk
● Ireland militant-left.org
 theActivist the bulletin of CWI members in

100 issues of the Activist

Editorial board statement Paddy Lillis is aiming to revive Coronavirus specials reacting
this approach under the new to the impact of the pandemic The late
Robbie Segal,
This issue is the 100th issue of name of a ‘tripartite’ approach on retail and distribution Usdaw EC
the Activist. Initially started in - with the addition of the Tory workers. An Activist public member
November 2007 as an e-mail government in the meeting has been established 2000-12 was
bulletin to retail and ‘partnership’! as a regular feature of ADM, as one of the
distribution activists, over the well as public meetings via founders of
The activist has instead put its Zoom during the pandemic. the Activist.
years since we have managed
confidence in the ordinary Three pamphlets have been
to develop the Activist into an
workers in retail, distribution produced over the years, sold supporter Amy Murphy, being
online bulletin and website.
and the other sectors who at ADM and other events elected as President of Usdaw
The Activist was founded in make up Usdaw’s expanding further on the in 2018.
opposition to Usdaw membership. We are confident Marxist ideas we put forward
leaderships embrace of that if given confidence, to transform Usdaw into a Many of the proposals put
partnership working with the Usdaw members will respond fighting union. forward by the left minority
employers which has always to a fighting lead or given the around Amy on the EC have
meant a one-sided space to democratically The late, former Usdaw EC been voted down by the
relationship where Usdaw is discuss the issues facing us member Robbie Segal, and majority around Lillis, but their
made responsible for the be prepared to take action to the others who founded the presence has won
diktats of the retail bosses. advance their interests. Activist provided a framework improvement in the demands
and socialist understanding of Usdaw has put forward in
Linked to this were an erosion Following from this, over the how to take our union forward, campaigns like ‘Time for
of lay member influence in the years there have been dozens that has aided the Better Pay’ and ‘Save Our
union, with the Executive of contributors, many of them development of a generation Shops’ for instance.
Council (EC) being reduced to not members of the parties of of activists in the union,
meeting for as little as two the Committee for a Workers’ including the current editorial We aim to assist in the
hours to act as a rubber stamp International who produce the board members. development of further layers
for decisions already made by Activist. As new contributors of activists in Usdaw, to take
the General Secretary. and others have taken on The fruits of that work have up the mantle of developing a
roles in producing and editing been shown by the significant union that fights and wins the
These are still very live issues the Activist we have been able growth in Activist supporters gains that retail and
today -‘partnership’ has now to take new initiatives. since it’s launch by an original distribution workers deserve.
been demonstrated to be few, and in the wider growth of
disastrous for retail workers in From the 2012 Annual the left in the union. The As well as continuing the
the erosion of premium Delegate Meeting (ADM) Activist has assisted in production of the Activist, we
payments, paid breaks, onwards special issues of the developing a left challenge to have plans for further special
staffing levels and more, Activist have been produced, the incumbent leadership, issues and pamphlets. We
whilst most retail workers still and distributed in printed copy from Robbie Segal winning appeal to any Usdaw member
struggle by on little above the at the ADM and other major 40% of the vote in the last that wants to find out more or
minimum wage. Yet Usdaw’s events, with special issues on contested General Secretary contribute to contact
current General Secretary other issues, including 9 election in 2008 to Activist usdawactivist@gmail.com

< From previous page
As the press release quoting
Usdaw General Secretary
Paddy Lillis points out many of
these safety measures were
agreed with the retail bosses
during the first lockdown. But a
key sentence follows this which
points to the problem of why
they are not being
implemented. He says, “Where
safety measures are agreed,
retailers need to make sure
that they are being followed
consistently, in every store.”
Whilst measures may be
agreed at the level of the
bosses organisations like the
British Retail Consortium, or
individual companies, it is far
from automatic they will filter
down to store level, given the
pressures on store managers
to maintain sales volumes in
order to reap the companies
profits.
The only guarantee of such
safety measures being
implemented is a confident
membership of union
members, and their reps within
the stores. Yet, a number of
Usdaw reps have reported to
the Activist, that when they
have become aware of these
issues cropping up in multiple
stores, then instead of this
being taken up collectively with
management, they are forced
to still attempt to just deal with
it at the level of the stores.
Retail workers must take a leaf
out of the tremendous action
by education workers, with first
NEU and then Unison
members, invoking in a
collective fashion their rights
under Section 44 of the
Employment Rights Act 1996,
which gives workers the
individual right to withdraw
from a workplace where they
believe they face ‘serious or
imminent danger’.
We urgently need the Usdaw
leadership to bring members
together, using technology
such as Zoom, like the NEU
successfully did with a meeting
where 400,000 watched, to
hammer out a strategy of how
the unions rank and file
membership can be mobilised
to force the retail bosses to
take our safety seriously.
As well as discussing how
Section 44 could be used in
the retail context, other options
could be explored such as
indicative ballots of members
over the possibility of taking
strike action.

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